Breakfast with Bongani Bingwa

An organisation working with many day care centres for children in informal settlements, Ikamva Labantu, says the operators cannot manage to fulfill all the norms and standards put in place as criteria for registering these centres.

Ikamva Labantu's Barbara Stemmert says the building regulations is the one key factor that is a stumbling block.

Stemmert is responding to a claim by WC social development that illegal day care centres are mushrooming in the province almost every week and it's difficult to have them under control.

The educares that we work with in the informal settlements find themselves in extreme poverty. The children attend their educare in a shack structure and the centres don't meet the norms and regulations.

— Barbara Stemmert, Programme Head for the Early Childhood Development at Ikamva Labantu

If the children who don't go to an educare are going to be unsupervised and go wandering about, where does the mom that has employment and doesn't earn a major salary going to place her child?

— Barbara Stemmert, Programme Head for the Early Childhood Development at Ikamva Labantu

With the help of the Provincial Government, Stemmert says they have started an initiative to help these day care centre get registered but there are still hurdles that they need to overcome including the infrastructure issues.

It is not that people don't want to get registered but the process is extremely difficult for many and very costly.

— Barbara Stemmert, Programme Head for the Early Childhood Development at Ikamva Labantu

There are saying, "If an educare is not registered they close it down" but what happens to the children?

— Barbara Stemmert, Programme Head for the Early Childhood Development at Ikamva Labantu